The Crooked Staircase

April 1, 2018
Former FBI agent Jane Hawk continues her no-holds-barred campaign against the mind-control conspiracy that caused the suicide of her decorated Marine husband.In past adventures (The Whispering Room, 2017, etc.), Hawk dispatched some of the baddies responsible for creating and injecting brainwashing nanotech implants--and dramatically raising the national suicide rate. With the cabal entrenched in government agencies and private industry, she got indicted for espionage, treason, and murder and is now the most wanted person in America. Continuing her mission to restore her husband's good name and nail Booth Hendrickson, the corrupt Department of Justice figure behind the conspiracy, she must evade all manner of sophisticated surveillance technology. Her path to Hendrickson is through his half brother, Simon, a mother-obsessed sociopath who tortures and psychologically breaks women. To get to Simon, Hawk must tame his naïve spitfire girlfriend, the memorably named Petra Quist. For Hawk, who is as fearless as she is beautiful, no obstacle is too great, especially with the well-being of her hidden-away 5-year-old son on her mind. There is seemingly nothing she doesn't know, from intricate details about alarm systems to the functions of the three pairs of saliva glands. She's also a skilled pianist. With many pages devoted to a less compelling parallel mind-scrubbing story about brilliant young fraternal twins, the book sometimes bogs down in the padding. But writing his unusual heroine, Koontz keeps the pages alive with attitude as well as action.The third book in Koontz's lively series tends to rehash scenes from the first two, but it's still an absorbing thriller full of fresh touches.

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Starred review from May 1, 2018
In the third Jane Hawk novel, the renegade FBI agent continues her relentless pursuit of the people behind the conspiracy that cost her husband his life. Someone has been turning ordinary men and women into puppets (� la The Manchurian Candidate), forcing them to commit murder and, then, to commit suicide. Driven by rage and an unquenchable thirst for answers, Jane risks her own life to exact revenge on the people who took her husband from her. Beautifully plotted and written with notable care and flare, the novel is a spellbinding follow-up to The Whispering Room and The Silent Corner, both published in 2017. It works just fine as a stand-alone, too, as Koontz allows Jane to bring the reader up to speed in a way that doesn't feel shoehorned into the story. Koontz has had a long and consistently best-selling career, encompassing horror, science fiction, fantasy, and straight-up thrillers, and he's rarely stumbled. The Hawk series?there's a fourth one scheduled to be published in October 2018?is among his best work.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Expect all the promotional bells and whistles to be clanging and wailing at full volume as Koontz once again climbs the best-seller lists.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)